There are numerous applications in the package/ports system which deal with media & media plug-ins. See the www section of http://openports.se for examples. Caveat: the OpenPorts site is specific to packages/ports found in -current. The version found in -release and/or -stable may be older or non-existent.

I have found that the best result come from using a Firefox extension like DownloadHelper and then playing the files with VLC. Not every site works with this but most do.
Many sites have switched to HTML5 which gets around this problem entirely.

I have found that the best result come from using a Firefox extension like DownloadHelper and then playing the files with VLC. Not every site works with this but most do.
Many sites have switched to HTML5 which gets around this problem entirely.

If you don’t mind downloading videos before watching, I use cclive and get_flash_videos (both available as packages) very often to grab videos from Youtube and other video sites.

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Many thanks to the forum regulars who put time and effort into helping others solve their problems.

This is a complaint about the operation of a third party application. These are not part of the OpenBSD system, they have been configured to operate on OpenBSD through a porting effort, and are available as ports/packages per FAQ 15.

Some general suggestions, since you ask:

Determine, if you can, whether the problem you have is specific to the OpenBSD platform, or if it is a general problem that occurs on other operating systems.

For problems that occur on other operating systems also, you should address the problem to the application's support organization. In this case, the problem may be searched and reported via the gnashdev.org's gnu bug tracker.

Note that for the problem URL you reported here, that web page has links to six different .swf files; the unplayable file may be only one of those files. A little diagnostics on your part may uncover the root cause.

Understanding the limitations of the software you are trying to use may be helpful. Gnash does not work with all .swf files. The Gnash User Manual states:

Quote:

Gnash is capable of reading up to SWF v9 files and opcodes, but primarily supports SWF v7, with better SWF v8 and v9 support under heavy development. Since the 0.8.2 release, Gnash includes initial parser support for SWF v8 and v9. Not all ActionScript 2 classes are implemented yet....

For problems with ports/packages that you determine are OpenBSD-specific, you may be able to obtain help here, from the OpenBSD ports@ mailing list, or from the port's $MAINTAINER.